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The Black Archive #16: Carnival of Monsters

The Black Archive #16: Carnival of Monsters

The Black Archive – a series of book-length looks at single Doctor Who stories from 1963 to the present day.

‘Nothing serious, nothing political…’

Combining apparently unlinked plots into a single satirical adventure story, and uniting a producer-director keen to push the boundaries of the electronic studio with a writer who delights in conjuring worlds from tiny details, Carnival of Monsters (1973) works on various levels for its different audiences. This Black Archive draws on surviving scripts, storylines and production files to explore its roots as a story, its thematic resonances and linguistic quirks.

Ian Potter is a TV historian and a prolific author of fiction and drama..